Vapor-Girl

A Fantasy Tale by Stephen Geez
www.StephenGeez.com
Art by Dizzy

Rikmun stepped from his modest tar-house into middling black night and gazed toward the rocky mountain-high ridge.  Vari-colored swirls of rising lightning mist lit starless tar sky with shimmering flashes, magenta fingers twisting among tendrils of phosphorescent teal and turquoise and tangerine before dissolving into the ether of nothing.

The vapors would rise strong and true on this rare night when neither of two moons dared show a shiny face to warn the emboldened tingle-winds back into the chasm where they bide.

“And will you ride with me, this my last time?” called the distant voice of Tamoo-girl from the night.

Rikmun struck fire to light the see-pod, its yellow glow erasing sky even as it revealed the glistening eyes of Tamoo approaching from her tar-house in the lower-land.  She stopped several paces away, then stood her vapor-board on its tail and shook her head, that way she had of fluffing her gleaming pink tresses.

“Still you ask them, the silly questions while I mourn,” he answered, already failing in his plan to make happy where happy can never again dwell.  As an older adolescent orphaned by an earlier ground-shake, he had been allowed to keep his childhood home and so to live his life as a man.  Tamoo had just lost her father, her only family, to the recent great ground-shake, and now with no man owning her she would be sold to another at tomorrow’s Assembly, her fate already known, a life serving the sons of Motticot the Elder, three brainless men of brawn requiring her to bear babies she would never be allowed to love.

“I mourn, too,” she said, “so will you ride with me in my grief?”

“I would ride always with you, Tamoo-girl,” he said, turning to pick up his board lest she see his eyes water even as his throat hurt.  He had been riding the vapors with Tamoo since they were young children, this despite the harsh behavior of boys who resented how Tamoo’s father let her ride like a man, how he allowed her to behave so unlike a proper girl.

She stepped closer to the see-pod, and her eyes sparkled, her hair flaming that iridescent pink.  She had defied the Council of Propers once again this night by donning the swatches of mottled blue Frick-beast hide she’d skinned after a defensive kill, her ensemble revealing more than even the most immodest of proper girls would ever dare.

Rikmun blushed and looked away, sensing he had made her smile again, the way she used to delight in teasing him back when there seemed hope his father’s water-crystal collection would someday prove sufficiently valuable to outbid wealthier elders only marginally interested in a girl so easily given to shameful behavior and scandalous opinions.

But that day would never come.  Rikmun had been tracking Frick-beast with older men when a great ground-shake came, and by the time he made his way home bandits had passed through, leaving his parents’ lifeless bodies but scant else, the secreted water crystals found and stolen.  Now Tamoo wanted to sell her own dead father’s home and land, and thus give the proceeds to Rikmun so he might bid for her, but the Council of Propers deemed this unacceptable.  With no man to claim succession, Tamoo’s house and land now belonged to the people, its disposition a matter for the next Assembly, these final days dwelling there an act of mercy so she might mourn properly.

Rikmun had known she would expect to spend this last night with him riding the vapors, the rare promise of moonless dark and starless tar sky roiling the chasm’s bowels until winds roared and careless riders died while the brave soared higher than dreams.

Again, he looked away, so she moved closer, reaching out to touch his hair, a sin for which watchful eyes could have her punished.  Having never allowed herself to fear the Council’s wrath, she always stood defiant no matter how she suffered at their hands, always delivering the same words when allowed her moment to express remorse: “My punishment, it is to live among you.”

He extinguished the see-pod and followed her gaze toward the world-edge ridge.  The vapors had already begun sweep-splashing rocky crags with misty light, flashes of red and blue lightning bolts probing tar sky.

A surge in the scintillas of glowing vapor-specks streaked by, so she lifted her vapor-board high and tested the air.  A gust of misty light caught the board and held it aloft.  She fastened the hand-hide around her board’s lightning hook, then headed down the trail, pulling her flyer on its power leash.  She paused just long enough to look back with her practiced mien of exasperation.

He fastened his own hand-hide, then floated his board into the air and hurried after her, knowing that even on this last night to ride she would leave him behind if he dared tarry another moment.

They arrived just before half-night to find the vapors roaring truer than Rikmun had ever seen.  A score of riders had arrived and begun steeling themselves for adventure, men and adolescent boys who dared brave the biggest waves, younger boys relegated to watching from ledges jutting over the chasm—not too close lest a bolt of lightning blacken their bodies and steal their souls, or the emboldened tingle-winds lift them from their perches and carry them boardless to tar sky’s certain death.

“Tamoo-girl, she come teach us,” said Rikmun’s hunting friend, joining the pair.  “Teach us ride big vapor, better than any man.”

“Tamoo, she make us proud,” said another of the youngers approaching.

A third hurried up to the group, panting with excitement.  “Kenta brothers, they say ride tandem this night.  No way, I say.  Nobody since grandfather’s friends ride tandem, not die.”

They all turned to watch, and Rikmun noticed many harsh looks directed toward Tamoo, this girl who still dared ride vapor surely knowing Motticot would punish her severely after tomorrow’s Assembly.  Tamoo would never ride again after this night, all knew, not on this world, not in this life.

The Kenta brothers launched their boards, Wain the more experienced, his younger Glin only now grown close to full man height.  They missed the next big bolt, so they tossed their lightning hooks several more times until catching a smaller one, the electric tug pulling them gently into vapor streams flowing up from the chasm, each brother positioning himself to ride the biggest waves.

They surfed back and forth, testing the vapors’ persistence, rising higher with each pass, then cutting toward the ridge side-by-side, almost touching.  Along the front edge of great drafts they skittered between bolts until gradually settling into a consistent flow that might last long enough to test their skills.  Younger Glin handed his hook to Wain, then carefully stepped to the rear of his brother’s board.

Suddenly it flipped, flinging them both into the roaring surge.  Wain grabbed his board and regained his footing while managing to hold Glin’s lightning hook, but the younger disappeared in the waves, a dark speck buffeted by eddies of light and tossed into misty geysers, sometimes dropped into holes only to rise in time to be tossed again.

Wain raced frantically, stomping into the surges on pass after pass, finally catching a draft alongside the younger, moving closer, closer, reaching frantically lest the next explosion rip them apart.

And Glin grabbed the tail of his own board, his lightning hook dancing dangerously free until a great blue bolt pulled it into a merciless whirl.  He regained his footing, holding on, seeking his chance, then skating into the fallout and riding outflow back to the shelf.  He crashed to the ground, gasping and weeping, his brother soon landing close by.

They hugged each other without regard for all that is proper, but nobody cared, the vapor riders being an improper bunch, if that can be possible in this time, in this world.  The crowd whooped its approval, this Kenta failure still the best attempt most had ever seen, and nobody had died.

The legend of riding tandem would remain just that, a fancy, never a possibility, but a most impressive show in its attempt.

As Tamoo moved to the edge and removed the hand-hide from her lightning hook, Rikmun remembered again the harsh truth of this last ride with his lifelong friend.  The night was passing too fast, surges already greater than ever seen, no way to continue braving such power and danger until daylight ignites the vapor-flow fires and burns down the mists.

He readied his board and gave the signal.  She caught a bolt, and he grabbed it, too, just in time, slipping in behind her for a gentle ride exploring myriad ledges lining the chasm from launch-flat to the low-land drops.  He moved beside her and held place as she circled back to catch gusts of lift, making passes over the crowd, many of the riders now trying to launch their own boards, a few already crashing on this most powerful of tar-sky vapor nights.

As she skittered this way and that, teasing the drafts, he never left her side.  This always impressed his friends, the way they appeared to float connected through the sky, just as birds fly and fish swim, each reacting instantly to magical signals that move them in concert.

In these moments, it seemed their souls mingled to become one.

They caught a big wave and rode into the heart of the roiling storm, their skin electric with vapor tingles, wind whipping all fluff from their hair, crooked lightning grins blinding them as each bolt’s after-laugh bellowed in their ears.  The infinite force beneath their feet drove them higher and higher until they soared across the heavens, even as twisting tornado holes snatched them into spiraling plummets so they might catch new bursts to ride higher still.

They surfed to exhaustion, that sheer power of the greatest vapor rise now battering them until they had no choice but to skate across to the world-edge ridge-side of the chasm and rest on a precarious ledge, their lightning hooks sheathed, electric gusts roaring skyward a mere arm’s-length from their faces.

“We have to ride cross now,” he shouted, cupping his hands around her ear, decorum and all that is proper no matter, not now, not ever again.

She shook her head, then moved closer and shouted, “I will not return.”

His heart pounded, and he recalled the story about a despondent young man who rode the vapors until he disappeared into the outflow mists that spill over the world-edge ridge and disappear forever, no way back.

“No!” he shouted.  “Tamoo, you will die!”

“Apart from you, I will die here, so I go where the vapors take me, maybe to a world beyond the edge!”

“It is sin to speak of that,” he warned, but what he wanted to say was that she must choose her own destiny, and there are no sins except against the heart.

“My father,” she yelled, “he believed our peoples came from beyond, a too-proper clan afraid of the world, and the chasm opened to keep us here.  Our ancestors, they ride the vapors to cross for trade, but ground-shakes made the chasm too deep, the vapors too strong, and now we never remember the way home.”

“But you might be wrong!”

She touched his hair, then stroked it gently, and their faces brushed as if he might keep her, and gentle fingers swirled around them and tickled their skin.

She stood and unsheathed her lightning hook, then looked at him tenderly, her eyes glistening in the phosphorescent hues of teal and turquoise and tangerine.  “Never will the Council let you keep me,” she yelled, “so I must give myself to the vapors!”  She tossed her hook into the swirls and mounted her board.  One look back with water eyes, and she disappeared into the roaring mists.

“Wait!” he called, jumping behind her, catching the next bolt and chasing her skyward.  He would give up his last chance to cross for home, knowing in his heart that scant moments they might ride together mattered more than any certain future riding alone without her.

The closer he drew, the faster she sailed, catching every burst to ride higher and higher.  He nearly caught her again and again, but she would plunge into another hole and skitter sideways to catch the next wave even at its most dangerous crest.  Still he pursued her, his heart pounding, destiny screaming in his ears.

She caught the world’s-end bolt, the biggest burst of all, just as he surfed in beside her, and they climbed together until they soared higher than the mountains, higher than absent moons, higher than the blackest boundaries of all that dwells ’neath starless tar-sky night.

He felt the board crack beneath his feet, and as their eyes met, he saw the fear in hers.  She looked toward his board just as it shattered, its shards scattered in consuming flame.

She reached out.

And he touched her, held her, stepped closer to her, and put his arms improperly around her waist even as he gained footing on her board to ride in tandem like no two had ever ridden before.

Their movements became one, even as their souls mingled to sail into whatever the fates would deliver childhood friends who love now as woman and man.

The next blast pushed them ever farther from home, and in the distance beyond the edge of the world he thought maybe he glimpsed a great city, but he could not be sure.

They submitted to the crashing overflow, propelled by sheer torrents flowing over the ridge and beyond, now surfing faster than bolts as they cascaded down a mountain river of pure lightfalls.

They might live forever, they might die in the next heartbeat, but Rikmun and his beloved Tamoo-girl would always ride the magic vapors as one.

*      *      *

© 2007 The Fresh Ink Group, LLC, All Rights Reserved

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